Sunday, January 06, 2013

You say you want a resolution

On New Year's Day I was still trying a psychic mind trick on the universe that would grant me a mulligan for the entire month of November, which I'm still harboring a few issues over missing, but now that that's obviously failed, I'm willing to move on. Forward!

2013! Nothing against you personally, but I'm going to do my best to ignore most of what you have to offer me until 2014, because I really need a catch-up year where my reading is concerned. It's going to be Eschew the New until the cows come home on December 31, 2013.

I'm also horrified by how little nonfiction I read last year and would love to read at least 15 from the list below: Payback. Margaret AtwoodThe Way the World Works. Nicholson BakerHow to Live, or A Life of Montaigne. Sarah Bakewell The Passage of Power. Robert A. CaroAt Day's Close: Night in Times Past. A. Roger Ekirch Debt: The First 5,000 Years, David Graeber The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. Stephen GreenblattWhy Orwell Matters. Christopher HitchensVotes for Women. The Virago Book of Suffragettes. Joyce Marlow, ed. Destiny of the Republic. Candice MillardThe Return of the Chaos Monsters - And Other Backstories of the Bible. Gregory MobleyThe Map of My Dead Pilots. Colleen MondorA Collection of Essays. George OrwellNixonland. Rick PerlsteinMonster of God. David Quammen The Song of the Dodo. David QuammenSpillover. David QuammenIceland: Land of the Sagas. David RobertsHallucinations. Oliver SacksThe Braindead Megaphone. George Saunders Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded. John ScalziThe Life of Elizabeth I. Alison Weir The Essential Rebecca West.The New Meaning of Treason. Rebecca West A Train of Powder. Rebecca WestThe Essays of Virginia Woolf, v. 6

I think sometimes I need an Eschew the New resolution as well. I've even thought about not adding anything to my TBR list (including older books) for a whole year, just so I can make a dent. But I know it wouldn't work out. I'd have a lingering feeling that I'd missed something great. Limiting myself to 24 new releases in 2012 worked out great though!

I've been feeling much the same. It seems that regular readers, because we keep up with what's going on in bookstores and in the publishing world, are easily overwhelmed by all the new choices offered us each calendar year. It sure happened to me this year. I'm not going whole-hog, like you, but I am planning to cut way back on new books this year and concentrate on some of the ones I know I've missed from prior years and decades. So far this year, both my reads are from way back: 1987 and 2002.

I wish you well in this impressive listing of non-fiction items. I've read two of them [Payback, and How To Live] and both of them were GREAT! I think you'll really like them. Also, I have The Swerve on deck here, as you do -- for 2013.All the best to you.

Best of luck with your reading for 2013! I've heard the Caro books are divine. I think there are 3 or 4 now? I have some catching up to do. I've heard the author speak on Book TV several times and look forward to his work.

Does the fact that you have Woolf's sixth volume of essay here mean you've read the first five? I am green with envy. I have read all the letters and journals but haven't yet found the stamina for the essays. You inspire me!

Destiny of the Republic is on my reading radar too. I've heard great things about it, so I put it on the list for my library's book group for this year (I'm totally mercenary and put the books I want to read on the list!) I read a bit of the first chapter a couple of months ago and I think it's going to be really good.